Publications

November 2011
Case

Celeritas, Inc.: Leadership Challenges in a Fast-Growth Industry

By: Michael Beer and Ingrid Vargas

In 2011, Celeritas is a leading data communications company in the crowded, highly competitive, and ever-evolving enterprise-network optimization market. Having experienced rapid growth since its founding in 2003, Celeritas has recently seen sales decline and has begun... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Morale; Conflict; Organizational Change; Team Building; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Information Technology; Leadership; Communication; Groups and Teams; Attitudes; Conflict and Resolution; Information Technology Industry; Communications Industry

January – February 2012
Article

How Managers Use Multiple Media: Discrepant Events, Power, and Timing in Redundant Communication

By: Paul Leonardi, Tsedal Neeley and Elizabeth M. Gerber

Several recent studies have found that managers engage in redundant communication; that is, they send the same message to the same recipient through two or more unique media sequentially. Given how busy most managers are, and how much information their subordinates... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Media; Information; Groups and Teams; Projects; Management Style; Power and Influence; Motivation and Incentives; Technology

June 2018
Supplement

Tomer Zvulun and The Atlanta Opera at Crossroads

By: Michael L. Tushman and Kerry Herman

Keywords: Innovation; Explore/Exploit; Ambidexterity; Zvulun; Opera; Arts; Strategy; Talent; Talent Management; Non-profit; Leadership Transition; Leadership; Organizational Behavior

September 2008 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Hearts On Fire - Brand Development Manager

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Benson P. Shapiro

Hearts On Fire, a successful branded diamond producer, established the position of Brand Development Manager (BDM) to build the company's presence, sales, and relationships with its retail customers. After one year, the CEO, CFO and President must evaluate the impact... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Investment Return; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Business Processes; Salesforce Management; Business Strategy

06 Oct 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

18 Tips Managers Can Use to Lead Through COVID's Rising Waters

managing through the pandemic. The topics: people and personal management, strategy, marketing, and organizational design. View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2010
Working Paper

CREATING LEADERS WORKSHOP: Mastering the Principles and Effective Delivery of 'The Ontological Leadership Course' (PDF File of PowerPoint Slides)

By: Werner Erhard, Michael C. Jensen, Kari L. Granger and Joseph J. DiMaggio M.D.

This workshop is designed to support participants in gaining mastery in the delivery of our new course: "Being A Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological Model." The Workshop was delivered at the United States Air Force Academy (July 13 - 16,... View Details

Keywords: Curriculum and Courses; Values and Beliefs; Globalization; Policy; Leadership Development; Goals and Objectives; Performance Capacity; Social and Collaborative Networks

Read Now

30 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Germany’s Pioneering Corporate Managers

to reform his company and continue successfully. What did Thyssen see that the others couldn't? A: Well, I would hardly say that Krupp or Siemens foundered in the 1880s, but they certainly faced a profound View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

17 Apr 2019
Research & Ideas

How Managers Stifle Creativity

the management approaches that people learned through decades of management education—especially in the 1950s and 60s View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

February 10, 2023
Article

The Case for Having a Boring CEO

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

CEOs who avoid the cameras and minimize drama offer valuable leadership lessons. Their lifestyles aren’t splashed on the pages of magazines. They don’t speak out on every public issue, and their pronouncements are balanced and cautious. Sometimes when I name them as my... View Details

Keywords: CEO; Leadership; Company Management; Personal Brand; Reliability; Humility; Public Opinion

03 Jan 2023
What Do You Think?

How Would the Leadership Style of Girl Scouts' Frances Hesselbein Fare Today?

about serving other people instead of yourselves, and you’ll have plenty to do.” Both used slogans and stories, repeated over and over, to lead... View Details

Keywords: Re: James L. Heskett

April 2007
Case

Leadership Forum: Building Great Careers - Video

By: D. Quinn Mills and Carole Winkler

Leadership: Can I learn it, how do I do it, and how can I use it to advance my career? How is today's world different from the one our teachers entered years ago, and how does that affect me? The two videos on this DVD address these and other questions typically asked... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Work-Life Balance; Leadership Development; Talent and Talent Management; Leadership Style; Knowledge Dissemination; Teaching; Executive Education; Decision Choices and Conditions; Management Style; Education Industry

May 2004 (Revised April 2006)
Case

Ultra: The Quest for Leadership (A)

By: Dwight B. Crane and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho

Ultra is one of a small group of competing Brazilian petrochemical companies, each of which buys raw material and is a minority owner of Copene, a "cracking" company that provides ethylene and other materials. Because of an industry restructuring, an auction of shares... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Capital Budgeting; Investment; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Industry Structures; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Valuation; Bids and Bidding; Economy; Ownership Stake; Chemical Industry; Brazil

October 2022
Case

Colette Phillips and GetKonnected!: Creating Inclusive Ecosystems

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Amy Chiu and Joyce Kim

Colette Phillips’ marketing firm had just won the City of Boston’s 2nd largest contract in history to a Black-owned company. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Get Konnected!, the networking organization for people of color that she founded 15 years earlier and led to... View Details

August 2007
Module Note

Managing Networked Businesses: Platform Evolution Module

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

Offers an overview of conceptual content and pedagogical guidance for instructors using a six-session module, "Platform Evolution," from "Managing Networked Businesses" (MNB), a case-based MBA elective course on platform-mediated networks. The module explores the... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Networks; Business or Company Management; Rights; Business Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Multi-Sided Platforms; Market Transactions; Innovation and Invention; Marketing; Competition; Market Entry and Exit

January–February 2025
Article

Why People Resist Embracing AI: The Five Main Obstacles—and How To Overcome Them

By: Julian De Freitas

The success of AI depends not only on its capabilities, which are becoming more advanced each day, but on people’s willingness to harness them. Unfortunately, many people view AI negatively, fearing it will cause job losses, increase the likelihood that their personal... View Details

10 Jan 2007
HBS Case

The Challenge of Managing National Security

attacks. Garry Emmons: The focus of your work is on how to manage integration within a highly differentiated organization. Post-9/11, how's the intelligence community doing on that score? Jan Rivkin: Intelligence issues are enormously... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Service

September 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Zurich Insurance: Global Job Structure and Data Analysis

By: Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly

Zurich Insurance was undergoing organizational change after implementing five new people practices focused on manager development, diversity and inclusion, job model and data analytics, recruitment, and talent pipeline. The case “Zurich Insurance: Fostering Key People... View Details

Keywords: Managing Change; Organizational Behavior; Organizational Architecture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Human Capital; Change Management; Organizational Structure; Insurance; Organizational Culture; Globalization; Human Resources; Insurance Industry

Article

The Error at the Heart of Corporate Leadership

By: Joseph L. Bower and Lynn S. Paine

Agency theory, a new model of governance promulgated by academic economists in the 1970s, is behind the idea that corporate managers should make shareholder value their primary concern and that boards should ensure they do. The theory regards shareholders as owners of... View Details

Keywords: Agency Theory; Business and Shareholder Relations; Leadership; Corporate Governance